FOOD

Mmkay.  So I love food.  Like, I really love food.  I have been known to say that if food were capable of informed consent, I would marry food.  I’ve often had trouble answering the question, “what’s your favourite food?”  Actually, I’ve always had trouble answering “favourite” questions in general, because I tend to categorize within each category. I do this with “best friends” (seriously, when I was little, I had a best school friend, a best church friend, a best neighbourhood friend, and a best friend of multiple categories), books (single book, series, classic, collected works of an author), musicals (first love vs. obsession of the moment), and, of course, food. Like, when you say “food,” do you mean “vegetable” (carrots and cucumbers), “meat” (steak, medium), “dessert” (which breaks down into cakes: chocolate, pies: apple, cookies: chocolate chip, hot from the oven, ice creams: homemade, and other: peach cobbler), or “meal” (oh, god. I need more categories)?

I have a really strong taste memory.  If I so much as see a picture of a cartoon lemon, I pucker up from the sour.  And when I hear people talking about pancakes, I can taste the butter and syrup and pancakes swirling around in my mouth.  My roommates sometimes like to play this game where they try to see what I can taste (I do have limits.  Goat cheese, for example, only brings a memory of gagging, but does not actually make me gag anymore; I blocked the memory of the taste itself).  So they start talking about mashed potatoes and cheesy eggs and chalk and hot sauce and watch my face to see how I react to the assortment of imaginary flavors.

Being so far from home, my homesickness does not manifest as “I need to cuddle a puppy” or “why isn’t the weather weirder?” or obsessively rereading the notes and cards from people back home.  No, my homesickness manifests as “god I miss X food. I wonder if I can get something like it here…”  And yes, I can.  I can buy carrots and cucumbers and jars of pears at the grocery store.  I can get potato wedges (which bear a striking resemblance to Arby’s curly fries, with which I have a long time love affair) in the café next to one of my class buildings.  I can order pizza.  But there’s just too many foods I can’t get.  Some of them are just not the same here (steak.  Brits don’t know how to cook their cow), some of them are just plain unavailable (I have yet to see a Panera), and some of them are things that I would have to cook myself and I have neither the talent nor the resources to pull them off (chicken broccoli braid. No recipe, no reliable food prep/cooking implements, no cooking ability of even a mediocre sort.).

So although I know I’ve done this before (in the Thanksgiving post), I’m going to list as many foods as I can think of that I really want to eat right now.* 

Scrambled eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls.  Extra large cup (plastic, not glass) of milk.  Possibly also some syrup, but I’m not sure why it’s there, since my mouth has not informed me of any pancakes or waffles in this imaginary meal

Egg rolls (from Hong Kong Wok, because I have never found an egg roll that can match theirs in sheer magnificence)

Lettuce wraps

Puppy chow (rumor has it Chex is selling it premade now)

Chocolate fudge, no nuts (Damn you, Warehouse 13. “Have you noticed the smell of fudge when there is no fudge?” No, but now I do.  This is why we hate MacPherson.)

Godiva truffles

Peach pancakes

Graham crackers and icing

Lindt truffles

Arby’s roast beef sandwiches (with Arby’s sauce) and curly fries

Chex Mix (to my junior high friends: remember in seventh grade, when every day at lunch, I had to eat my Chex Mix in a very specific order?  Still do.)

Fridge Raids (a meal unique to hanging out with Kayla.  Basically, we go through the fridge, freezer, and pantry, pull out everything that looks at all appetizing, pitch everything that’s gone bad, make up weird logic to justify it as healthy (Cookies, for example, have flour, butter, and eggs. So that’s grains, dairy, and protein.  Perfectly acceptable dinner choice.), and chow down straight from the containers. It’s the best thing ever.)

Smoked cheddar cheese

Homemade strawberry jam

Still chicken thumbs from Copper Blue (Every time I think I’ve gotten over them, I see mention of them when I update my blog and then bam. The craving hits again.)

Freddie Salad

Steak (I don’t think this is ever going to be not on my list. I just want a nice sirloin, marinaded and grilled to perfection or a filet mignon, medium.  Sweet Merlin, I miss good meat.)

Angel food cake

Cool whip (when everybody else serves it on their pumpkin pie, I eat it by the spoonful.)

Potato sausage chowder (with butter-soaked cornbread on the side)

Cottage cheese (we have a bit of a love-hate relationship.  Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don’t.  Right now, I’m in an “absence makes the heart grow fonder” kind of mood.)

Vanilla yoghurt (Ditto to the cottage cheese)

Potato skins

Strawberries and sugar (Mummydear slices and sweetens them for ice cream, but I don’t like to mix my foods, so I just have a bowl of strawberries, and eat the ice cream separate, if I’m in an ice creamy mood.)

Sugar cubes

Smores

Pot roast

Donuts (not the cake kind, the yeast kind, like at Krispy Kreme or Schneider's. Glazed or with chocolate icing.  NO sprinkles)

Pickles (bread and butter on a grilled cheese.  Kosher dill on a German bologna sandwich.  Or just a spear just because. Yum.)

Subway: footlong BMT on white bread with American cheese. Lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo, oil & vinegar.
Meatballs

*”Now” has a bit of a transitory definition, given that it’s taking me a few days to compile my list.  I didn’t want to repeat anything from Thanksgiving, but I thought I’d covered most of my cravings there.  So I’m adding to the list as I remember new foods to miss.  So although I no longer have the taste of lettuce wraps, for example, constantly in my mouth, I would still pounce on them if given half a chance.